In Your Eyes
by Kayla V Meyers
Summary: Wanda Maximoff tries to piece her life back together after the death of her twin brother, Pietro, and finds comfort in an unlikely person. Movie canon. Steve/Wanda friendship. Pietro/Wanda relationship in flashback. Some mentions of Natasha and Clint. Mature talk of death and grief, but otherwise safe.


In Your Eyes

It would take some time for Wanda to learn that she could live without her brother, or for her to even decide that she wanted to.

It was impossible in those first couple weeks when she awoke every morning, shackled to her bed with grief, barely able to draw breath into her burning lungs. She stared out at the sunny outdoor training yard of the new Avengers headquarters, reliving over and over the moment Pietro fell and feeling the violent tear as her soul was viciously ripped in two. The sound of her own scream, guttural and barely human, reverberated between her ears; the sound of a broken woman's plunge into madness. As if it were happening all over again, she felt the surge of her power as it seared her body from the inside out, threatening to incinerate her to ash.

She clenched her jaw so tightly it ached. Her fingers clutched at the blankets until her knuckled turned white. If she let herself cry she would never stop.

Before she could fully drown in her sorrow, there was a firm knock at the door. A moment later it opened and there stood Natasha, already in her uniform.

"We start soon. Get dressed and report down in the indoor training room in fifteen," she instructed, her tone of voice one that allowed no room for argument.

Wanda met her eyes silently and Natasha closed the door, retreating to rejoin the others. Once again Wanda found herself enveloped in silence that was only interrupted by the sound of light birdsong outside her window. Alone once again with her grief.

' _Pietro... I used to say I could no easier live without you than I could without lungs in my chest. How can I move when I cannot even draw breath?_ '

But she knew if she lingered too long Natasha would return to force her out of bed, so she commanded her heavy arms to push herself upright and her legs to carry her into the bathroom to shower.

Natasha Romanoff had never made any attempt to get closer with her, nor had she ever been unkind to her. Come to think of it, Wanda had never in her life formed a close bond with another woman and probably wouldn't have known how to respond if Natasha had tried. She suspected the same was true for Romanoff, who guided and instructed her the same way she did everyone else while keeping a professional detachment. She had her own reasons to build up walls around herself, her own private wounds. Not that she had much time to form many new friendships lately. Each day after combat training, Natasha would quietly slip away to the communications lab to continue her tireless search for Bruce.

They all understood; he was her lifeline, her only chance to feel anything real for another human being besides Barton. He was the only one who had been able to break down all the barriers she had built around herself over her lifetime.

Speaking of Clint Barton, she had only seen him a few times when he came to check on them, bringing along his wife and kids including baby Nathaniel. Wanda stood and watched from a distance as the small family knelt around the memorial to her brother they had erected on the grounds, huddled close together. Maybe Clint was telling his children about the brave young man who sacrificed his life to save their father's. She had to turn away.

Later on as she sat out in the courtyard reading and nibbling on her lunch, she felt someone sit beside her and looked up to find Clint with six-month-old Nathaniel gurgling in his lap.

"Hey," Clint smiled. "How are you, Wanda?"

"Oh, hello, Clint. I'm okay," she returned his smile, then focused her attention on the baby, slipping her finger into his tiny but strong fist. "Hi there, little one. He's beautiful."

Clint's eyes softened. "Thank you. Would you like to hold him?"

Her eyes lit up. "May I, please?" She opened her arms.

"Of course," Clint said, plunking the baby into her lap gently.

Nathan grinned up at her around the fist in his mouth that he chewed happily on. She smiled back at him. "Sweet boy..."

Clint gently put a hand on Wanda's arm. "If it weren't for your brother, I never would have gotten to see my son. I'm sorry I never had a chance to thank him for his sacrifice, and I'm even more sorry we had to lose him." The look in his eyes told her he knew his words weren't much comfort, but she was touched by them anyway.

She could merely nod as tears rose in her eyes, the lump in her throat making it impossible for her to speak. She looked back down at Nathan, bouncing him lightly on her knees. ' _You would do it all over again, wouldn't you, brother? You would give up your life again in an instant for this precious little one and his father. You wouldn't call it sacrifice; to you it would just be love_." After a while Clint said goodbye and took his family back to their peaceful little home in the country. A normal life just like Clint wanted.

Wanda hadn't formed any bonds with the new members of her team, either, although they were slowly learning to work together as an effective unit. Vision, even with his advanced artificial intelligence, was not able of understanding, on an emotional level, the complexities of the human response to things like loss and grief. James and Sam were both honorable men who would prove to be loyal and true allies, but they were from very different worlds than Wanda's. Besides, it would take time for her to gain back their trust considering her and Pietro's questionable allegiances in the beginning. She understood.

The person who spent the most time trying to connect with her, who seemed to genuinely want to understand was Captain Steve Rogers.

Perhaps because he knew, more than any of the others, how it felt to have your whole life ripped away from you in the blink of an eye. Seventy-five years ago he went under the ice and when he awoke from his long slumber the world as he'd known it was gone along with everyone he'd known and loved. It was a year before he found Peggy Carter, the former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D who stole his heart. The frail, sick old lady he found in place of the strong, regal woman who had stolen his heart all those years ago broke it enough to make him almost regret that he'd gone searching for her. Almost.

Bucky was an entirely different type of loss, though no less devastating. Learning that his best friend, his brother had been poisoned against him was as painful, if not even more so, than believing he was dead. In a way he was. Although he would never give up on rescuing Bucky – a soldier never leaves a man behind – he still had to mourn the loss of the man he'd known all his life and come to terms with the fact that man could be gone forever.

Steve was forced to start over, to create a new normal for himself, and he seemed determined to help Wanda do the same.

He paid closer attention to her than anyone else during training, instructing and correcting her when needed. Maybe it appeared to the other that he was coming down too hard on her, but she took it as a compliment that he saw so much potential in her. He told her from the beginning that she knew her own strengths better than anyone, it was only his job to help sharpen those skills and teach her to use them to effectively help her team. For a while she was worried the others might see it as favoritism, but if anyone noticed they didn't seem to care.

After their morning session she went back to her quarters to clean up and change. When she came back out Steve was there, casually waiting for her. "Hey," he smiled, dressed in street clothes and a Yankees baseball hat. "I'm dragging today, I need something to wake me up. Would you like to come with me to get some coffee and maybe something to eat?"

Her eyes dropped to the floor as she tugged on a piece of her auburn hair shyly. "No, thank you. I'm not very hungry," she declined, moving around him.

He followed her. "Just coffee then. Come on, it'll be my treat. Don't make me be the loser who always eats alone."

She bit her lip and thought about it, finally giving in. "All right."

"Great, thanks," he grinned, his smile bright and kind.

He led her out and they got onto the back of his motorcycle, her arms locked around his waist as they traveled to the nearest coffee shop in the city. She closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of wind in her hair and on her skin, and the warmth of Steve's back pressed up against her. She recalled several times throughout her life when she lay in bed unable to sleep because of a nightmare or the bad memories she was haunted by.

 _"Pietro?" She whispered into the darkness._

 _She heard her brother, tucked into the next bed, shift and felt his eyes on her. "Come here, Wanda."_

 _She got up and padded over on bare feet, turned down the covers and slid into bed next to her twin. Pietro turned on his side and clasped her hand, bringing her arm around him and hugging it to his chest as she pressed up against his back._

 _"All is well, sister," he whispered to her. "Sleep now."_

 _With his deep, slow breathing in her ears and the soft cadence of his heartbeat thumping under her palm, she drifted off peacefully._

She didn't realize she'd started to doze off until Steve gently woke her. She took off the helmet he gave her before they left as he parked by the curb and followed him to the coffee shop. The aroma of roasting beans, rich and deep, mixed pleasantly with the scent of freshly baked pastries in her nose. She breathed in deeply and heard her stomach growl, coveting the food. Maybe she _was_ hungry. After they ordered – an everything bagel with cream cheese and black coffee with two sugars for him, oatmeal with cinnamon and an espresso for her – they found a table outside to sit and eat.

As usual, especially these days, she didn't have much to say so he did the majority of the talking. He talked about growing up hungry and poor in Brooklyn during the Depression and losing his parents at a young age. She nodded; she could relate, although she wondered how he managed all by himself. She didn't know how she would have made it without her twin brother. He went on, explaining how his humble beginnings inspired within him a need to do something important in the world, to be a great man. When the Second World War started he saw his opportunity. He thought his size and bad health would always stand in his way until he met the man who would change his life forever.

"And then there was Peggy..." he sighed, his eyes and voice softening.

"Did you love her?" She knew she probably shouldn't have asked, but she didn't take it back.

"I think I was starting to," Steve replied after a moment. "There just wasn't enough time for us, you know?"

"What happened to her?"

"Oh, she had a wonderful life. Helped found S.H.I.E.L.D, married a great man who I actually served with. They had children and grandchildren," he smiled at the thought. It was everything he'd hoped for her. His smile faded. "She died last week."

She gasped, feeling horrible. Wanda remembered one morning seeing him get a telegram and the unreadable expression on his face as he looked at it. He'd gone away for a week after, apparently to the funeral. "I'm so sorry..."

"Thanks, me too. She's been sick for a while, living in a home up in New York. I'm glad she's at peace."

"May God keep her," she said quietly. It was all she could think of to say.

"I'm sure he will. So..." He cleared his throat, eager to change the subject. He didn't want to make this about him. "How are you doing, Wanda?"

She looked down into her bowl, scooping up a spoonful of oatmeal that she didn't eat. "I'm okay."

"I hope that's true. I also hope you know it's perfectly okay to _not_ be okay, too." He reached over to squeeze her hand.

She tensed and looked up, freezing in place when her eyes met his. Bright, kind blue. Like Pietro's. When they were trapped under the rubble of that building as children, her twin brother's eyes were the only reminder that she was still alive. After they got out from under the destruction, she still sought those pools of sky blue for everything she needed; comfort, truth, faith when she had none left. Since he died she wondered if she would ever find in anyone else's eyes what she saw in Pietro's.

Looking into Steve Roger's oceanic depths, she thought maybe it was possible.

"Just remember the goal is not to stop missing him or to stop hurting. You always will. The best you can do is to learn to live with the ache in a way that doesn't cripple you. And you will, because you're strong."

Her eyes once again pricked with tears. "Thank you." It seemed such a feeble way to express her gratitude.

They finished eating and drove back in companionable silence, Wanda hugging Steve's back to her chest.

When he dropped her off outside her apartment, he turned to meet her eyes again. "Thanks for joining me. Maybe we can do it again sometime."

She nodded, waving a little before she went inside.

–

Later as she stood in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, brushing her hair and searching her own face for the courage to believe Steve was right. To find the strength he saw in her.

A strange feeling came over her, prompting her to look around.

Suddenly a cool burst of fresh air rushed past her, ruffling her hair. The window was closed.

She heard Pietro's voice in her ear, as close as if he were standing right next to her. "All is well, sister. Sleep now."

Wanda smiled at her reflection. "Goodnight, Pietro," she whispered into the silent, empty room.


End file.
